The Abuja bazaar

By Idris Akinbajo


May 23, 2010 12:27PM


Three notable cases best epitomise how Aliyu Modibbo, as the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, made a mockery of the Abuja master plan and entrenched lack of due diligence as standard operating practice in land management.

The cases are the purchase of 4million square metres of land by Sunrise Estate Development, Houses For Africa Development Ltd and Harmony Properties Development all in Abuja.

Shady dealings

On Tuesday, January 22, 2008, at the office of the minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), in Area 11, Garki, Abuja, Mr. Modibbo, then FCT minister, met with officials of a fictitious company with the grandiose name of Houses For Africa Development Ltd.

At the end of the meeting, an agreement was reached with the company officials led by Adrian Ogun, its executive director, who at this point got the green light from Mr. Modibbo to go round the FCT and choose a site.

Interesting however, Mr. Modibbo was aware that Houses For Africa Development Ltd had not yet been formally registered as a company under Nigerian law.

After a merry go round, the company opted for 9.7 hectares of land located in Dutse district of Apo.

However, there was a problem. The land, on which Abuja indigenes were already living, had already been marked for a different purpose and the Abuja Geographic Information System, (AGIS), particularly its general manager, Ismail Iro, refused to play ball.

Nervous that their quest for choice land would be subverted by the land information agency, Mr. Ogun, on May 27, 2008, wrote a letter to his friend, the minister, requesting that “the honourable minister would consider instructing the general manager of AGIS to kindly allocate a right of occupancy over the said 9.7 hectares, ”

At the time of making this request, the company was “non-existent”, as it was not registered.

However, by June 25, the agency’s chief received the instruction from Mr. Modibbo. A. Sulaiman, the Director of Urban and Regional Planning wrote to the GM stating that Mr. Modibbo “had been briefed during our meetings about the commitments and villages living on the site but directed the revocation of the two plots on reasons of overriding public interest.”

They had been ordered to give the plots to the ‘company’.

Sensing that the coast was clear, Houses for Africa, on Monday, June 30, 2008, officially applied for the right of occupancy from AGIS. One week after, on July 7, 2008, the ‘company’ was registered by the Corporate Affairs Commission as ‘Houses for Africa Development Limited.’

A violated master plan

Allocation of land to non-existent companies in controversial circumstances were not the only way Mr. Modibbo (mis)managed the FCT. In clear violation of the Abuja Master Plan, Mr. Modibbo, at the point of leaving office in October 2008, activated a lands bazaar, giving land gifts to state governors, editors, law enforcement officials, and top government functionaries. Included amongst the major beneficiaries of these were the senate president, David Mark and the former National Security Adviser, Sarki Mukhtar.

Mr. Modibbo’s distortion of the Abuja master plan came as an irony for a man who, at his April 2008 Senate hearing, had pointedly accused Jeremiah Useni, a retired general and former FCT minister, of violating the Abuja master plan and promised to work to maintain it.

Investigations now show that he went father than Mr. Useni in violation that same plan.

Plot 1038 A05 in Maitama, district of Abuja is designated a sports complex in the Abuja master plan for instance. The plan calls it an urban park/open space. However, the location of this land was too tempting for Mr. Modibbo. Mr. Iro of the AGIS had told newsmen there was no more land to be allocated in choice areas of Asokoro and Maitama - and so something had to be done.

Following the request for choice land by top political office holders, and his decision to play ball, Mr. Modibbo carved out 25 plots of land from this location.

Fraudulent conversion

Mr. Modibbo had learnt from his predecessor.

Five months before his screening, Nasir El-Rufai had been grilled by angry members of the Senate committee on FCT in an atmosphere of hostility, and so he figured that there was no better way to avoid the wrath of the Senate than to pacify it’s leader. On September 3, 2008, the FCT minister approved one of the converted plots for David Mark, the president of the Senate (plot 1923).

Sensing that security reports had been generated on the fraudulent conversion of the land to residential plots, Mr. Modibbo gave one of the plots (plot 1922) to Mr. Mukhtar, the then National Security Adviser (NSA).

Then, a month and a half after, on October 28, Mr. Modibbo realised that the coast was clear: the other plots were ready to be shared.

Bukola Saraki, governor of Kwara State and chairman of the PDP Governors Forum (Plot 1937); Ikedi Ohakim, governor of Imo State (Plot 1942); Liyel Imoke, governor of Cross River State (Plot 1944); Aliyu Wamakko, governor of Sokoto State (Plot 1949); Ibrahim Shema, governor of (Plot 1947); Mahmud Aliyu Shinkafi, governor of Zamfara State (1939) benefitted next from the largesse.

Perhaps to ensure that the opposition Action Congress (AC) was not left out, Babatunde Fashola, the AC governor of Lagos State, who was busy protecting the parks and green zones in his state while Abuja was being violated, was also given; Plot 1948.

The spree reached even the Presidency, where Patience Jonathan, wife of then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, was also given one plot (Plot 1940).

Mr. El-Rufai had incurred the wrath of top government functionaries by deciding to stick to the Abuja master plan and then demolishing various property, including that of a former national chairman of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), former senate presidents, and several senators. Mr. Modibbo decided to toe the opposite path: winning them over by giving them land.

Several other green areas in the Abuja master plan suffered the same problem as the sports complex under Mr. Modibbo. For instance, Pages 3, 9, 19 etc of the Abuja Master plan show the land directly behind the State Security Service (SSS) headquarters in Aso drive of Maitama as a green area - protective forestry.

Numbered Plot 1030 in the master plan, Mr. Modibbo decided to convert it to residential plots for his friends in high places.

Thus, eight plots of land were carved out from the area; and on August 29, 2008, Mr. Modibbo approved Mike Okiro, then Inspector General of Police (Plot 1925); and Mohammed Ohiare, a former PDP senator from Kogi State (plot 1927) as some of beneficiaries of the converted plots.

Sunny deal for Sunrise

It was not only in the violation of the Abuja master plan and giving land to patrons and cronies that the former FCT minister thrived. The Sunrise Estate deal is another example.

Sunrise Estate Development Limited, registered in 2002, is owned by foreigners including a Lebanese and a Greek. Under the “Accelerated Development Program within the FCT,” the company applied for land with which to build a private estate.

During this period however, Mr. Modibbo’s tenure as minister was coming to an end. Having been accused of financial misappropriation and sensing that the former president, Umaru Yar’Adua was about to remove him from office, the FCT minister would not allow the Sunrise deal pass him by.

In controversial circumstances, the minister approved three different plots of land (two in Maitama and one in Kugbo district of Abuja), measuring 4million square meters (400 hectares), to the company in one day (September 23, 2008), a few weeks before he was removed as minister.

Though it is unclear what Mr. Modibbo got from the deal, a senior official knowledgeable about the Abuja land process described it as “monumental and unprecedented in Abuja land allocation.”

When we contacted Mr. Modibbo for his reaction to our findings, he asked us to send him specific questions. At the time of going to press however, there was still no response from the former minister.

During his handing over ceremony on Friday, October 31, Mr. Modibbo not only declared his intention to ‘serve’ Nigeria again if offered the opportunity, he also commended his administration’s performance.

“We have tried to restore confidence in the administration of FCT and have instituted a number of programmes. I wish the in-coming administration will sustain the legacies we have left behind,” he said.
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I mentioned Fasola here because while he is busy displacing other people in Lagos, he is busy requesting for and getting plots of land for himself in Abuja.

Can anyone explain what given (plot) means? Does that mean for free or they paid for it?

Can we ever find any clean leader in this country?

Giving plots of land means to dash/gift/free. These lands belong to poor people who were forcefully evicted in the name of the "Abuja masterplan". These gifted lands run any where from tens of millions of naira to millions of dollars and many of these thieves have got them all over the place. Even El-Rufai did the same thing though to lesser degree. I don't know why abuja has to have a minister, that position should be democratically contested for.

edoyad:

Giving plots of land means to dash/gift/free. These lands belong to poor people who were forcefully evicted in the name of the "Abuja masterplan". These gifted lands run any where from tens of millions of naira to millions of dollars and many of these thieves have got them all over the place. Even El-Rufai did the same thing though to lesser degree. I don't know why abuja has to have a minister, that position should be democratically contested for.

I see a problem there.Who should be the people contesting for it?The 'indegenes' or the 'settlers'

I see a problem there.Who should be the people contesting for it?The 'indegenes' or the 'settlers'

anyone with Nigerian Passport and above 18years OLD.

look above

Lets blame everything on Mr. James Ibori. Lets just kill the 'basterd' and then Nigeria would be USA afterwards. Ballz.

pro01:

Lets blame everything on Mr. James Ibori. Lets just kill the 'basterd' and then Nigeria would be USA afterwards. Ballz.

My guy, no worry. It is a fool that will apportion blame to Ibori here. Nigeria don spoil, no bi today!

pls what is this noise about.arrest the parties involved and let us rest.